{"id":10166,"date":"2008-04-14T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-14T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=10166"},"modified":"2008-04-14T07:16:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-14T11:16:00","slug":"funny-games-u-s-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/14\/funny-games-u-s-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Funny Games U.S. (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"funny-games-us\"<\/a>The entire time I was observing the villains in Haneke\u2019s remake of \u201cFunny Games,\u201d I could only ironically think back to the monologue Tim Roth gave in the opening of \u201cPulp Fiction.\u201d His story about a man who robbed a bank over the phone by claiming he\u2019d shoot a child, while the bank was never sure if there was ever actually a child was reminiscent of the two young men who could have posed a threat to the couple and their child here. There\u2019s never an actual indication that they\u2019re harmful in the beginning, nor is there an indication of their deadly capability until coerced with difficulty by their victims, there\u2019s only the possibility, and sometimes that\u2019s all people need to incite petrifying fear in a stranger.<\/p>\n

Often you don\u2019t need to know that someone can harm you, you just have to think it\u2019s probable that they\u2019re willing to harm you. With the right manipulation, and insistence of sociopathic tendencies, anyone can be controlled. \u201cFunny Games\u201d has been, without a doubt, the most controversial movie of the year. People who love it, absolutely love what it brings to the table, while people who hate it, despise everything it is, and what it tries to be. Why are these two young men engaging in such sadistic acts with a family they\u2019ve never met? We\u2019re never completely sure. Haneke knows we want logic and reasoning for this seemingly senseless acts of violence. Is it revenge, perhaps?<\/p>\n

An approach toward blackmail? Just plain sexual perversion? No, it\u2019s for the fun. They\u2019re doing it for their own pleasure, they\u2019re doing it for the games, and they\u2019re doing it for us to people we\u2019re more than likely prone to dislike. In many instances, Pitt\u2019s character breaks the fourth wall and verifies that they\u2019re both very aware that we\u2019re watching and haven\u2019t bothered to turn away, and this gives them a thrill. So, he and his friend engage us rather than leave us as spectators. They want us to play, and they know we want to see how it ends. Haneke exercises ludicrous acts of self-deprecating behavior on the part of both his villains and his victims, leaving us to despise pretty much everyone in this unfolding of folly and farce.<\/p>\n

Our villains are just as self-assured and self-important as our victims, while they pretty much demonstrate every wrong move you can imagine as one being held hostage. They\u2019re too comfortable, and the duo here wants to ensure that they never feel that way again, particularly when they demoralize and dehumanize all three of these people at every turn and display a torture that rarely involves bodily harm. All they have to do is play along, and after a bet is made, there\u2019s the definite assurance that the bet Pitt\u2019s character places to his captives, and to us, will be lost by the time the film is over.<\/p>\n

The breaking of the fourth wall is one of the most unorthodox devices Haneke enlists for his thriller, but then \u201cFunny Games\u201d aspires to be the pure antithesis of a thriller. While we root for the escape and salvation of these innocent bystanders, it\u2019s made painfully clear time and time again that Haneke is on the side of our two maniacal villains. We want retribution, we want reparations, we want revenge, but Haneke refuses to submit to our pleas, because he\u2019s the storyteller, and he\u2019s the one playing the games. Magnefique. Haneke\u2019s thriller is not an easy take to take. It\u2019s despicable, self-aware, and woefully painful to sit through, but the show he and his characters put on for us is awe-inspiring, challenging, and probably one of the most engrossing movies of 2008. I’ll have to see the original, now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The entire time I was observing the villains in Haneke\u2019s remake of \u201cFunny Games,\u201d I could only ironically think back to the monologue Tim Roth gave in the opening of \u201cPulp Fiction.\u201d His story about a man who robbed a bank over the phone by claiming he\u2019d shoot a child, while the bank was never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[111,259,338,474,835,1013,1087],"class_list":["post-10166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-arthouse","tag-dark-comedy","tag-f","tag-home-invasion","tag-remake","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}